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Interesting September Stock Options for McDonald's

Consistently, one of the more popular stocks people enter into their
stock options watchlist at Stock Options Channel is McDonald's
(MCD). So this week we highlight one interesting put contract, and one interesting call contract, from the September expiration for MCD. The put contract our YieldBoost algorithm identified as particularly interesting, is at the $85 strike, which has a bid at the time of this writing of $1.84. Collecting that bid as the premium represents a 2.2% return against the $85 commitment, or a 3.5% annualized rate of return (at Stock Options Channel we call this the
YieldBoost).

Selling a put does not give an investor access to MCD's upside potential the way owning shares would, because the put seller only ends up owning shares in the scenario where the contract is exercised. So unless McDonald's Corp sees its shares fall 9.3% and the contract is exercised (resulting in a cost basis of $83.16 per share before broker commissions, subtracting the $1.84 from $85), the only upside to the put seller is from collecting that premium for the 3.5% annualized rate of return.

Turning to the other side of the option chain, we highlight one call contract of particular interest for the September expiration, for shareholders of McDonald's Corp
(MCD) looking to boost their income beyond the stock's 3.5% annualized dividend yield. Selling the covered call at the $100 strike and collecting the premium based on the $1.31 bid, annualizes to an additional 2.2% rate of return against the current stock price (this is what we at Stock Options Channel refer to as the
YieldBoost), for a total of 5.7% annualized rate in the scenario where the stock is not called away. Any upside above $100 would be lost if the stock rises there and is called away, but MCD shares would have to advance 6.8% from current levels for that to occur, meaning that in the scenario where the stock is called, the shareholder has earned a 8.2% return from this trading level, in addition to any dividends collected before the stock was called.

The chart below shows the trailing twelve month trading history for McDonald's Corp, highlighting in green where the $85 strike is located relative to that history, and highlighting the $100 strike in red:

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